Real Projective Plane - Examples

Examples

Topology is not concerned with flatness, and the real projective plane may be twisted up and placed in the Euclidean plane or 3-space in many different ways. Some of the more important examples are described below.

The projective plane cannot be embedded (that is without intersection) in three-dimensional Euclidean space. The proof that the projective plane does not embed in three-dimensional Euclidean space goes like this: Assume that it does embed, it would bound a compact region in three-dimensional Euclidean space by the generalized Jordan curve theorem. The outward-pointing unit normal vector field would then give an orientation of the boundary manifold, but the boundary manifold would be projective space, which is not orientable. This is a contradiction, and so our assumption that it does embed must have been false.

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